Agence France-Presse,
COLOMBO: Sri Lanka carried out retaliatory air strikes against Tamil rebels Thursday, a day after intense artillery battles left hundreds killed or wounded, according to officials on both sides.
Military jets pounded a suspected hideout of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the northeast coastal district of Mullaitivu, where the guerrillas have their main military bases, the defence ministry said.
A spokesman said a location identified as a training camp for suicide bombers was hit in Thursday's strikes.
There was no immediate word from the separatists, but there was a lull in fighting in the northern peninsula of Jaffna, where a major government offensive was repulsed on Wednesday.
The Tigers returned the bodies of 28 troops killed by them while the military handed over a body of one Tiger rebel, officials said, adding that the swap was arranged by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
LTTE spokesman Rasiah Ilanthiriyan said the Tigers, who have been fighting for decades for an independent homeland for ethnic minority Tamils, had killed more than 100 government troops and wounded about 500.
Ilanthiriyan raised the LTTE's own losses to 25 from the 16 admitted on Wednesday night.
However, the defence ministry said its forces killed more than 100 Tigers and reported losing 43 soldiers, with another 33 missing in action.
It was the security forces' biggest loss in a single offensive since October 2006, with hospitals in and around Colombo packed with wounded soldiers evacuated from Jaffna.
Even as the fighting subsided in Jaffna, security forces and Tigers traded fire elsewhere in the north of the island, the defence ministry said, adding that 32 rebels had been killed in other clashes with troops on Wednesday.
For their part, the Tigers said they had killed 15 more government soldiers for the loss of one fighter in the north on Thursday in fresh fighting.
Wednesday's setback for government troops came despite official claims that the separatists had been virtually wiped out following almost daily clashes since the military pulled out of a Norwegian-arranged truce in January.
Latest official defence ministry figures, which include Wednesday's toll, show that 3,105 Tigers have been killed by security forces this year.
However, at the start of the year the military said there were only 3,000 Tiger rebels left.
Pictures released on pro-rebel websites showed what was said to be soldiers who were killed inside a Tiger bunker line and bodies of soldiers laid out on plastic sheets at an undisclosed location.
Defence sources said Wednesday's battle was a repeat of the October 2006 fighting, when security forces were pushed back by a major Tiger counter-offensive.
Military analysts noted that security forces had again underestimated the strength of the Tigers, who had concentrated forces in their mini-state in the north since being driven out from the multi-ethnic Eastern province.
The Tigers ran the Jaffna peninsula as a de facto separate state for five years until they were driven out in October 1995. However, they took back the southern part of the peninsula in April 2000.
The LTTE have been fighting to carve out an independent homeland for Tamils since 1972. Tens of thousands have died on both sides in the conflict.
